WWE legend, 43, teases wrestling future after ‘retirement’ match in AEW-Alistair McGeorge-Entertainment – Metro

Bryan Danielson hasn’t officially closed the door on more matches (Picture: AEW/Lee South)

Bryan Danielson has addressed his wrestling future after ending his full time career at AEW WrestleDream.

The 43-year-old icon, best known to WWE fans as Daniel Bryan, lost to Jon Moxley last month after vowing to hang up his boots once he lost the world title.

However, he’s now offered fresh hope that he hasn’t quite given up on wrestling again in the future.

Danielson pointed out that he deliberately never said ‘retirement’, besides the build-up to actually winning the championship against Swerve Strickland at Wembley Stadium in August.

‘I was very cautious to not say “retirement,” except for the match where if I lost, I would retire. After that, it was all, ‘the end of my full-time wrestling career”,’ he said.

Speaking to his wife Brie Bella on the Nikki & Brie Show podcast, he added: ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen with my neck, but it honestly feels like I have a bobblehead.’

The American Dragon lost to Jon Moxley last month (Picture: AEW/Lee South)

The match marked the end of Danielson’s full time career (Picture: AEW/Lee South)

The former world champion will still have to undergo neck surgery, but Brie admitted her husband told her not to do a ‘big post’ on social media after WrestleDream because a wrestler is never truly retired.

‘To me, at the end of the day, I realised this with my last retirement [in WWE], which was forced. I didn’t want to retire, but they wouldn’t let me wrestle again,’ he recalled.

‘What I found is people are sad for a bit. Then, everybody just moves on and it doesn’t matter. The hardest part for it is probably for the person who does it.’

The American Dragon was previously forced to retire due to injury in 2016 before making a sensational comeback two years later.

Danielson still needs to undergo surgery (Picture: AEW/Lee South)

He left the sports entertainment juggernaut in 2021 and joined rivals All Elite Wrestling, and last month he lost to Moxley in a world championship bout with wider implications.

As reported by Fightful at the time, ‘his full-time career is effectively over’, while he has been working ‘without a talent contract for a number of months’, making him a free agent.

He previously told Metro.co.uk that his neck has ‘been progressively getting worse’, confirming he will need neck surgery sooner rather than later.

He said: ‘My neck’s been bothering me for years, but it is from the [recent] Will Ospreay match. It’s been progressively getting worse, and I’ll probably have to have neck surgery before the end of the year.’

He said the only time he mentioned retirement was before the Swerve Strickland match (Picture: AEW/Lee South)

Danielson noted his match with Okada was the turning point (Picture: AEW/Lee South)

Danielson has been open about his plans to step back from a full-time schedule, particularly after his October 2 match with Kazuchika Okada.

He told Yahoo Sports’ Uncrowned: ‘Midway through the match, I started losing strength in my legs. There’s a point later in the match where I’m trying to kick him and I can’t turn over my kicks.

‘That’s something that I have the body mechanics to do because I have been doing it for so long, but here I am and I can’t turn my hip over for this kick.’

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